To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee: Character Analysis

Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. Lee is best known for her book To Kill a Mockingbird. The time that this story takes place in the early 1930s. Harper Lee is the youngest of four children. Lee’s father was a lawyer and her mother was stuck inside most of the time because she suffered from a mental illness. Similar to Lee’s father, Atticus Finch is also a lawyer. Atticus one of the only white people in all of Maycomb that openly opposes racism. He has two children who go by the names of Jem and Scout. A mockingbird strongly symbolizes innocence. Very few people in the small town of Maycomb are to be considered mockingbirds. In her novel, Harper Lee uses Boo Radley, Scout Finch, and Tom Robinson as the human embodiment

Scout and her brother Jem are four years apart in age. She has much more growing up to do than Jem does. As a white girl in the south, Scout is expected to wear dresses, but all she wants to wear is overalls and tennis shoes. Scout is the only person who helped Boo get back to his house safely. Not only did she do that, but she made it seem like he was the one escorting her. Scout says, “I put my foot on the top step and stopped. I would lead him through my house, but I would never lead him home. ‘Mr. Arthur, bend your arm down here, like that. That’s right, sir’ (Lee 319). This shows that she wants people to accept him into the rest of society. However, earlier in the story, Scout received punishments in school, even though she never did anything wrong. Euphorically, Scout says, “Miss Caroline picked up her ruler, gave me half a dozen quick little pats, then told me to stand in the corner” (Lee 24). Even though these punishments did not actually hurt Scout, it got a loud eruption of laughter from her classmates. It was more embarrassing than painful. Scout was just stating the truth and did not mean to set off Miss Caroline. It was an innocent act of kindness, just trying to inform her on the hierarchy within the

Tom Robinson is a cripple African American man, and one of the nicest people in all of Maycomb. He is twenty five years old, married to Helen Robinson, and has three children. Tom Robinson is accused of raping Mayella Ewell; a very trashy white woman, and the daughter of Bob Ewell. Bob is a drunk, typically unemployed member of Maycomb’s poorest family. He represents all the poverty, hate, and evil within the South. Tom Robinson walks past the Ewell’s house everyday going to and from the fields. Tom says, “She gave me the hatchet and I broke up the chiffarobe. She said ‘I reckon I’ll hafta give you a nickel, won’t I?’ I said, ‘No ma’am, there ain’t no charge’” (Lee 217). This shows that Tom does not do things for money, but more so out of the goodness of his heart. Regardless, as the trials go on, people continue to think of Tom as property. In the white people’s mind, they think that no black person can be good. A white person’s word always beats a black person’s word. Tom Robinson never stood a chance and is sentenced guilty. Judge Taylor says, “‘Guilty...guilty...guilty...guilty…’” (Lee 240). This shows how even though the evidence clearly proved his innocence, Tom Robinson would have still been given the same sentence. Tom is a mockingbird because people knew he was an innocent man convicted of a crime he did not